The largest and richest online poker tournament series, PokerStars 2018 SCOOP kicked off this week and it has already crowned several high-stakes champions, including live tourney player Niall “Firaldo87” Farrell and online poker pro Roman “RomeOpro” Romanovsky. The current season of the Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) can be accessed through the PokerStars platform and it offers a record guarantee for its $65 million for its 61 events. The overall prize pools during the championship are worth the impressive $110 million.
Niall Farrell, also known as “Firaldo87” in online poker tournaments, took home $219,900 and the SCOOP-03-H: $2,100 NLHE Progressive KO title. The event drew 577 entrants with a $1 million in guarantees. The Glasgow-based player survived until the end when he had to face J.C. “PrtyPsux” Alvarado in the final heads-up battle. Farrell defeated the experienced Mexican poker pro and received the $101,854 first place prize. In addition, he claimed the bounty for $118,055, increasing his winnings more than twofold to nearly $220,000. Alvarado finished second for a prize of $75,948 and his second place on the bounties brought him another $27,258.
Another interesting tournament during the 2018 SCOOP was $1,050 NLHE 8-Max $500,000 GTD. It attracted a field of 728 players, including notable poker pros who, however, did not manage to take the trophy. Among them were Viktor “Isildur1” Blom (14th, $7,155), Michael “mczhang” Zhang (9th, $11,192), and Justin “ZeeJustin” Bonomo (4th, $48,672). The event was won by Ukrainian poker pro Roman “RomeOpro” Romanovsky, who is one of the players with online winnings of over $9 million so far. His first place in the tournament gave him another $123,953, as well as his first ever SCOOP title.
More Champions Emerge at PokerStars 2018 SCOOP
This is the ninth edition for the Spring Championship of Online Poker and it offers 61 tournaments, each available in three tiers depending on the size of the buy-in – Low, Medium, and High. This means that there are a total of 183 events and each day, players can participate in at least one $1 million GTD tournament. Many of the events have already ended but another high-stakes tourney during the series was the $2,100 PLO 6-Max which offered a guaranteed prize pool of $500,000.
A total of 355 entrants paid the $2,100 buy-in and the one who came out victorious was German pro Konstantin “BongBob” Bücherl who has taken part in multiple mid-high stakes tournaments. The player is actually focusing on online Pot Limit Omaha (PLO) games. Here he claimed the title and the first place prize of $130,329. Other poker pros who finished in the money at the event were David “Bullitos” van der Weele (36th, $4,447), Shaun Deeb (28th, $5,560), Ike “philivey2694” Haxton (27th, $5,560), Laszlo “omaha4rollz” Bujtas (22nd, $6,950), and Gavin “gavz101” Cochrane (8th, $16,975).
